Winner of the Golden Globe for best picture, the Screen Actors Guild award for best ensemble cast, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for best picture and, in all likelihood, the upcoming Academy Award for best picture (and I figure you can take that to the bank), Ben Affleck’s film “Argo” is indeed a superlative adult thriller with a bit of show business humor and timely drama thrown in the mix. If it’s true that they don’t make ’em quite like they used to anymore, Affleck, who directs and stars in this fact-based film, is trying his best to do so.

Affleck stars as Tony Mendez, a CIA agent on a seemingly impossible mission to rescue six Americans who escaped the embassy in Iran as pro-revolutionary Iranians took their co-workers as hostage. That incident lasted for more than a year, but in 1980, Mendez went into Iran disguised as a film producer seeking a place to shoot a science fiction film, with the intention of walking out of the country with the American embassy workers at his side, posing as a film crew.

“Argo” in its first half is an often very funny Hollywood satire, and in its second half a nail-biting thriller (often the tension seems articifially ratcheted, but hey, it’s a movie). It’s to Affleck’s credit as a director, and a deft screenplay by Chris Terrio, that this melding of tones works as seamlessly as it does. When you have a terrific ensemble cast including Bryan Cranston, John Goodman and Academy Award nominee Alan Arkin, that doesn’t hurt either. Is “Argo” the best film of the year, in my opinion? No, but it’s safe to say it’s one of them. $28.98 DVD, $35.99 Blu-ray.

“SINISTER”

2012 was not a particularly great year for horror, but “Sinister” would be a worthy entry and a total blast for genre aficionados even in the most bountiful of times for scary movies. From the producers of “Insidious,” “Sinister,” like that film, is an atmospheric slow burn of a horror thriller that mines some genuine frightening moments and builds a mythology around its paranormal antagonist that doesn’t detract from the scares. In a time of lazy genre work and found-footage films that aren’t as intelligently crafted as they need to be to be effective, “Sinister,” an old-fashioned haunted-house movie, is like a breath of fresh air. And that’s funny, because “Sinister” has its found-footage cake and eats it too, so to speak.

Ethan Hawke stars as a true-crime writer who moves his family into a new home to write about the grisly murder of the family that lived there previously. In the home’s attic, he finds a box of old Super 8 films and a projector, and on those films, the documentation of not only the murder of the family he’s writing about, but several others. But who made the films? And to what purpose? As he’s drawn in further, he discovers the answer might be supernatural, and more horrifying for him and his family than he could possibly understand. “Sinister” is truly disquieting throughout, and while it stumbles just a bit overexposing the supernatural beastie behind it all near the end, it’s still really, really scary, and great fun. $29.95 DVD, $39.99 Blu-ray.

“ANNA KARENINA”

Joe Wright’s “Anna Karenina” is an ambitious, stylish and divisive adaptation of the classic novel, told in an ­unusual way that draws attention to its own artifice, undercutting the story, offering too many distractions to compel audiences to care about its characters. It’s a bold attempt, to be sure, but a bold failure.

The conceit with this adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel is that the entirety of the film (save a handful of sequences) take place in a dilapidated old theater, where sets are constantly dressed and redressed, elaborate props are introduced and our characters make their way on stage and off, through the backstage and the rafters and the lobby. Keira Knightley reunites with her “Atonement” and “Pride & Prejudice” director here, playing the titular role, a woman of high Russian society married to a distant but principled aristocrat (Jude Law). Anna falls under the spell of the charming young Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Despite her knowledge of the pitfalls of adultery in high society, she eventually embarks on a passionate affair with Vronsky, leading, inevitably, to tragedy.

The metaphor is clear: In Russian high society, your life is public, as if stagebound. This theatrical conceit is not complicated, yet serves to distance the viewer nonetheless from the action, as it becomes difficult to care why its characters are doing what they’re doing, nor is it immediately easy to discern just who’s who and where they are, particularly if you aren’t familiar with Tolstoy’s novel. And yet Wright’s trademark visual sumptuousness is on full display here; there are stunningly shot sequences and visually clever moments that rank right up there with the best of 2012. For that reason, perhaps “Anna Karenina” is worth seeing, but, sadly, only for that reason. $29.98 DVD, $34.98 Blu-ray.

“FUN SIZE”

Ostensibly a comedy aimed toward high schoolers from Nickelodeon Studios — which right away seems problematic, since high schoolers generally don’t watch Nickelodeon-related films or programs and the content in this party-­oriented film is not really geared toward young preteens — “Fun Size” is a largely mirthless affair, even with its considerably edgier sense of humor. If this is the first comedy with sexual content and drinking that a young person ever sees — like a starter comedy — maybe it’ll make that hypothetical person laugh. For anyone else, it’s been there, done that, seen it much better before.

Nickelodeon television star Victoria Justice stars as Wren, a high schooler preparing to go to a Halloween night party thrown by her crush (Thomas McDonell) when her widowed mother (Chelsea Handler) forces her to take her younger brother trick-or-treating. Her brother, prone to getting into trouble anyway, gives her the slip, and Wren and her friends (Jane Levy, Osric Chau and Thomas Mann) go on an odyssey to find him and still make the party of their lives.

If it isn’t as morally repugnant and wildly unfunny as last year’s “Project X” (which, coincidentally, also featured Mann), that’s only by virtue of not being as explicit; everything else is the same old celebration of high school partying with pat pro-family sentiment thrown in near the end so any parents seeing this with their children don’t go into conniptions over what they’ve seen. Though it does have one of the better Josh Groban jokes I’ve seen in a while. $30.99 DVD, $37.99 Blu-ray.

“ATLAS SHRUGGED: PART II”

Is it appropriate to call “Atlas Shrugged: Part II,” the sequel ironically filmed and released (despite audiences largely rejecting the first film’s inexplicable wide release in theaters) in direct opposition of Ayn Rand’s free market principles, a trainwreck? Say what you will about Rand’s ideas, but this hammy, ridiculous adaptation can’t possibly do justice to her novel, protracted and seemingly including every damn line of the novel though it may (this is the second of three planned films adapting the work). The film didn’t even retain the cast from the first film, so it’s a new cast working on this ludicrous nonsense, this time with added Occupy Wall Street derision and 100 percent more Sean Hannity (considering the previous film was entirely bereft of Hannity; I’ll leave judgment to you on that one).

Samantha Mathis (“Super Mario Bros.”) here plays Dagny Taggart, the put-upon railroad tycoon in the midst of a “strike” of the world’s best and brightest as the nation has slipped further into economic depression thanks to unpoliced far-left policies and government intervention on the free market. She draws ever closer to the mystery of John Galt, a mysterious figure orchestrating this strike, to cripple the system and restore the “job creators” to their prosperity and prominence.

“Atlas Shrugged: Part II” is a profoundly terrible experience from start to finish, featuring tone-deaf performances from virtually everyone. But, to paraphrase an apocryphal line from Harrison Ford on the set of “Star Wars,” it’s one thing to write this, but try saying it (or, worse, valuing it as something with a meaningful message — OK, I’ll stop, sorry). $22.98 DVD, $29.99 Blu-ray.

“UNDEFEATED”

Winner of last year’s Academy Award for best documentary feature film, “Undefeated” is a must-see for lovers of football, one of those too-good-to-be-true stories in which a documentary crew was just at the right place at the right time to capture something extraordinary, which is, in this case, an inspirational sports story that would be the sort of thing you’d find hard to believe, if it were fiction.

Directors T.J. Miller and Dan Lindsay chronicle a year in the life of Manassas, an inner-city north Memphis high school, and its football team, historically a pushover with little funding, troubled student players and little hope to get better. Dan Courtenay, the white volunteer football coach who works with the students outside his day job, presses his students to develop as men. “Football doesn’t build character,” he says, “football reveals it.” And the young men under his tutelage grow and reveal their characters during the course of a tumultuous year that sees the Manassas Tigers reach for heights previously unaccomplished by the program, as personal trials test them and they fight against the odds to succeed not only in sports but in academics.

“Undefeated” is pretty much a treasure of a documentary, a great drama that happens to be nonfiction. It’s been available for purchase exclusively at Walmart for some time now; check it out everywhere else starting today. $19.98 DVD, $24.99 Blu-ray.

About This Blog

“ARGO”

Winner of the Golden Globe for best picture, the Screen Actors Guild award for best ensemble cast, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for best picture and, in all likelihood, the upcoming Academy Award for best picture (and I figure you can take that to the bank), Ben Affleck’s film “Argo” is indeed a superlative adult thriller with a bit of show business humor and timely drama thrown in the mix. If it’s true that they don’t make ’em quite like they used to anymore, Affleck, who directs and stars in this fact-based film, is trying his best to do so.

Affleck stars as Tony Mendez, a CIA agent on a seemingly impossible mission to rescue six Americans who escaped the embassy in Iran as pro-revolutionary Iranians took their co-workers as hostage. That incident lasted for more than a year, but in 1980, Mendez went into Iran disguised as a film producer seeking a place to shoot a science fiction film, with the intention of walking out of the country with the American embassy workers at his side, posing as a film crew.

“Argo” in its first half is an often very funny Hollywood satire, and in its second half a nail-biting thriller (often the tension seems articifially ratcheted, but hey, it’s a movie). It’s to Affleck’s credit as a director, and a deft screenplay by Chris Terrio, that this melding of tones works as seamlessly as it does. When you have a terrific ensemble cast including Bryan Cranston, John Goodman and Academy Award nominee Alan Arkin, that doesn’t hurt either. Is “Argo” the best film of the year, in my opinion? No, but it’s safe to say it’s one of them. $28.98 DVD, $35.99 Blu-ray.

“SINISTER”

2012 was not a particularly great year for horror, but “Sinister” would be a worthy entry and a total blast for genre aficionados even in the most bountiful of times for scary movies. From the producers of “Insidious,” “Sinister,” like that film, is an atmospheric slow burn of a horror thriller that mines some genuine frightening moments and builds a mythology around its paranormal antagonist that doesn’t detract from the scares. In a time of lazy genre work and found-footage films that aren’t as intelligently crafted as they need to be to be effective, “Sinister,” an old-fashioned haunted-house movie, is like a breath of fresh air. And that’s funny, because “Sinister” has its found-footage cake and eats it too, so to speak.

Ethan Hawke stars as a true-crime writer who moves his family into a new home to write about the grisly murder of the family that lived there previously. In the home’s attic, he finds a box of old Super 8 films and a projector, and on those films, the documentation of not only the murder of the family he’s writing about, but several others. But who made the films? And to what purpose? As he’s drawn in further, he discovers the answer might be supernatural, and more horrifying for him and his family than he could possibly understand. “Sinister” is truly disquieting throughout, and while it stumbles just a bit overexposing the supernatural beastie behind it all near the end, it’s still really, really scary, and great fun. $29.95 DVD, $39.99 Blu-ray.

“ANNA KARENINA”

Joe Wright’s “Anna Karenina” is an ambitious, stylish and divisive adaptation of the classic novel, told in an ­unusual way that draws attention to its own artifice, undercutting the story, offering too many distractions to compel audiences to care about its characters. It’s a bold attempt, to be sure, but a bold failure.

The conceit with this adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel is that the entirety of the film (save a handful of sequences) take place in a dilapidated old theater, where sets are constantly dressed and redressed, elaborate props are introduced and our characters make their way on stage and off, through the backstage and the rafters and the lobby. Keira Knightley reunites with her “Atonement” and “Pride & Prejudice” director here, playing the titular role, a woman of high Russian society married to a distant but principled aristocrat (Jude Law). Anna falls under the spell of the charming young Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Despite her knowledge of the pitfalls of adultery in high society, she eventually embarks on a passionate affair with Vronsky, leading, inevitably, to tragedy.

The metaphor is clear: In Russian high society, your life is public, as if stagebound. This theatrical conceit is not complicated, yet serves to distance the viewer nonetheless from the action, as it becomes difficult to care why its characters are doing what they’re doing, nor is it immediately easy to discern just who’s who and where they are, particularly if you aren’t familiar with Tolstoy’s novel. And yet Wright’s trademark visual sumptuousness is on full display here; there are stunningly shot sequences and visually clever moments that rank right up there with the best of 2012. For that reason, perhaps “Anna Karenina” is worth seeing, but, sadly, only for that reason. $29.98 DVD, $34.98 Blu-ray.

“FUN SIZE”

Ostensibly a comedy aimed toward high schoolers from Nickelodeon Studios — which right away seems problematic, since high schoolers generally don’t watch Nickelodeon-related films or programs and the content in this party-­oriented film is not really geared toward young preteens — “Fun Size” is a largely mirthless affair, even with its considerably edgier sense of humor. If this is the first comedy with sexual content and drinking that a young person ever sees — like a starter comedy — maybe it’ll make that hypothetical person laugh. For anyone else, it’s been there, done that, seen it much better before.

Nickelodeon television star Victoria Justice stars as Wren, a high schooler preparing to go to a Halloween night party thrown by her crush (Thomas McDonell) when her widowed mother (Chelsea Handler) forces her to take her younger brother trick-or-treating. Her brother, prone to getting into trouble anyway, gives her the slip, and Wren and her friends (Jane Levy, Osric Chau and Thomas Mann) go on an odyssey to find him and still make the party of their lives.

If it isn’t as morally repugnant and wildly unfunny as last year’s “Project X” (which, coincidentally, also featured Mann), that’s only by virtue of not being as explicit; everything else is the same old celebration of high school partying with pat pro-family sentiment thrown in near the end so any parents seeing this with their children don’t go into conniptions over what they’ve seen. Though it does have one of the better Josh Groban jokes I’ve seen in a while. $30.99 DVD, $37.99 Blu-ray.

“ATLAS SHRUGGED: PART II”

Is it appropriate to call “Atlas Shrugged: Part II,” the sequel ironically filmed and released (despite audiences largely rejecting the first film’s inexplicable wide release in theaters) in direct opposition of Ayn Rand’s free market principles, a trainwreck? Say what you will about Rand’s ideas, but this hammy, ridiculous adaptation can’t possibly do justice to her novel, protracted and seemingly including every damn line of the novel though it may (this is the second of three planned films adapting the work). The film didn’t even retain the cast from the first film, so it’s a new cast working on this ludicrous nonsense, this time with added Occupy Wall Street derision and 100 percent more Sean Hannity (considering the previous film was entirely bereft of Hannity; I’ll leave judgment to you on that one).

Samantha Mathis (“Super Mario Bros.”) here plays Dagny Taggart, the put-upon railroad tycoon in the midst of a “strike” of the world’s best and brightest as the nation has slipped further into economic depression thanks to unpoliced far-left policies and government intervention on the free market. She draws ever closer to the mystery of John Galt, a mysterious figure orchestrating this strike, to cripple the system and restore the “job creators” to their prosperity and prominence.

“Atlas Shrugged: Part II” is a profoundly terrible experience from start to finish, featuring tone-deaf performances from virtually everyone. But, to paraphrase an apocryphal line from Harrison Ford on the set of “Star Wars,” it’s one thing to write this, but try saying it (or, worse, valuing it as something with a meaningful message — OK, I’ll stop, sorry). $22.98 DVD, $29.99 Blu-ray.

“UNDEFEATED”

Winner of last year’s Academy Award for best documentary feature film, “Undefeated” is a must-see for lovers of football, one of those too-good-to-be-true stories in which a documentary crew was just at the right place at the right time to capture something extraordinary, which is, in this case, an inspirational sports story that would be the sort of thing you’d find hard to believe, if it were fiction.

Directors T.J. Miller and Dan Lindsay chronicle a year in the life of Manassas, an inner-city north Memphis high school, and its football team, historically a pushover with little funding, troubled student players and little hope to get better. Dan Courtenay, the white volunteer football coach who works with the students outside his day job, presses his students to develop as men. “Football doesn’t build character,” he says, “football reveals it.” And the young men under his tutelage grow and reveal their characters during the course of a tumultuous year that sees the Manassas Tigers reach for heights previously unaccomplished by the program, as personal trials test them and they fight against the odds to succeed not only in sports but in academics.

“Undefeated” is pretty much a treasure of a documentary, a great drama that happens to be nonfiction. It’s been available for purchase exclusively at Walmart for some time now; check it out everywhere else starting today. $19.98 DVD, $24.99 Blu-ray.